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Volunteers with the Prince George RCMP's Speed Watch program were out Wednesday morning as a province-wide and month-long campaign against speeding drivers began.
Equipped with radar guns and notepads, they took down the licence plate numbers of vehicles seen exceeding the speed limit. The offending drivers won't get a ticket, but they could get a letter in the mail telling them what would have happened if police had pulled them over.
On average, speed-related crashes kill 13 people in the North Central Interior every year, according to Insurance Corporation of British Columbia numbers. For the province as a whole, the count rises to 81, making speed the number one cause of car crash fatalities in B.C.
Small changes in speed can have a significant impact: an increase of just one km/h in average speed results in an increase of three per cent of crashes resulting in injury and four to five per cent increase for fatal crashes.
“Speeding really doesn't get you there any faster but increases your chances of crashing. When you slow down, you see more of the road and have more time to react to the unexpected. We can all do our part by slowing down to make our roads safer and save lives," ICBC spokesperson Lindsay Matthews said.
Speed includes unsafe speed, exceeding speed limit, excessive speed over 40km/h, and driving too fast for conditions.
